The Outsiders, the famed S.E. Hinton novel about class warfare between Greasers and Socs in 1960s Oklahoma, spawned the original 1967 book, a 1981 movie adaptation and a 1993 play. Now as a new musical written by Adam Rapp and Justin Levine — and featuring music composed by the folk-rock group Jamestown Revival with Levine — The Outsiders combines elements of the book and movie into a dynamic production that won four Tony Awards including Best Musical. It’s been a big hit with audiences too.
Cody Spencer won the 2024 Tony Award for Sound Design of a Musical, and it’s a well-deserved accolade, as he brings a cinematic experience to the production utilizing surround sound in the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. Yet he does so in a way that avoids making you feel like you’re sitting in a movie theater. The show’s robust sound design feels fuller and louder than it actually is due to the placement of speakers all around the venue and an L-Acoustics L-ISA object-based surround system hung at mezzanine level.
For the production, Spencer wanted to deeply engage the audience on an audio level, using the L-ISA object-based surround system to track cast members as they moved across the stage. Thus, if Ponyboy started a monolog while located at stage right and then walked to stage left, the audio would move with him. While that sounds like something more suitable for a movie experience, the way that Spencer had the five mezzanine-level speakers placed made the tracking sound natural.
The speakers were originally spread across 36 feet, meaning they were each nine feet apart. But they did a second P.A. hang, narrowing the total width to 30 feet, so each speaker was 7.5 feet apart.
“Our first hang was at the proscenium width,” Spencer explains. “But if you were sitting in the audience at the proscenium with the speakers, all of a sudden the person speaking feels like they’re coming from way offstage. Narrowing it to make it tighter gave more of the room the experience that they were speaking inside the actual frame of the proscenium.”
Spencer notes that they could not use trackers on many of the actors because some take their shirts off and many fight in the mud during the rumble sequence. Thus, cueing is handled between lighting cues and the A1 taking manual cues based on location. Which, as Spencer adds, led to questions as far as sonically following cast movements: “Do you lead with the voice? Do you follow with the voice? You’re never going to get it exactly right. So there are times where we’re leading with voice for things that are more upbeat. We found that leading with the voice really helps with the song. Yet on things that are a little more ballad-y and laid back, following with the voice makes more sense, because you’re hearing their live voice more. It took a lot of trial and error.”
Sound All Around
This was the first time Spencer had used L-ISA in a proscenium setting. He previously used it for last year’s Here Lies Love musical at the Broadway Theater, which was both harder and easier as those audiences were immersed in the same technology, including people on the floor, in two installed balconies, and the larger mezzanine section. In the proscenium setting for The Outsiders, Spencer and his team had to make many more calculations.
The show runs on a DiGiCo SD7 Quantum using 218 inputs. Spencer uses L-ISA software because of how he executes delays and likes control over everything. Every single speaker in the room had its own amp channel. He admits that’s not cost effective, but it was the best way for him to have the most control.
There are 188 L-Acoustics speakers in front of the stage, on the mezzanine, and circulated all around the sides and back of the audience on both levels. There are L2Ds across the front of the mains. There are KS21s for subs, A15s for the upstairs delays, A10s for personal surrounds, and a plethora of X12s, 5XTs and X8s. There are 40 speakers on stage “so any place an actor is we can control exactly what they hear so that we don’t need to have the whole stage volume up,” Spencer says. “We use zones, so as they move around it’s very precise what they’re hearing. We’re not getting bleed from the stage for a much cleaner sound. I really fought for spending as much money as I could on stage as well, to make sure I had the control I needed. People are happy with the way it sounds.”
There is a nine-piece orchestra in the pit — drums, bass, two guitars (electric, acoustic, lap steel), a keyboard player, upright piano, fiddle, cellist and a reeds player. The music has a nice, full sound without being blasting the audience and L-ISA allows for that.
“When we wanted it to be more full, we’d do the sources a little bit wider, and we’d also go into the room engine,” Spencer says. “All of a sudden, it feels more present and feeling like we’re being a little more lively in the room. But we’re actually at the same level. We spent a lot of time working on that. There are times with only an acoustic guitar, and it feels all-encompassing because it’s all around you due to the L-ISA room engine. We’re no louder than if we just had the acoustic guitar on.”
A prime example of the audio wizardry being performed occurs during “Friday at the Drive-In,” when the band is rocking the hardest in the show, and during which different players get solos. “During the solos, we’d bring the solo source up center and make it a little wider,” Spencer explains. “You would hear that presence, but we would push the rest of the band back and into the room engine a little bit more. Therefore, you perceive the sound level not changing. We didn’t push any instrument. We just turned everything else down around there for a second. Then we went to the next instrument, and then turn that up, and then turn everything else down around it.”
The Outsiders audio team includes Stephen Jensen (programmer), Mike Tracey (production audio), Heather Augustine (A1/FOH mixer), Joe Samala (A2) and Thomas Ford (associate sound designer). Sound effects specialist Taylor Bense helped build the initial sound effects. Spencer sings the praises of his team who work on a show with some 1,200 cues, 50 of them alone for the 105-second rumble sequence that’s devoid of singing or music, yet so dynamic — that audiences immediately burst into applause once it ends.
Ready to Rumble
The rumble sequence is an impressive, highly coordinated ballet of fight choreography with sound and lighting cues that turn it into a powerful statement on the violent, rain-drenched battle between the working-class Greasers and upper middle class Socs (aka Socials) over the accidental killing of a bullying Soc by a fed-up Greaser. The fight starts with different combatants individually sparring with an opponent, but as the sequences move on, each actor turns to face the audience as they each collectively react to successive slaps and punches. And covered in mud and being rained on, it’s not always easy to distinguish who’s on what side.
During the rumble, lighting cues move across the stage to focus on individual clashes, and when the group collectively reacts to the punches, light flashes across sections of different people. The flashes are accompanied by a powerful sound that combines the beginning crack of thunder (“it’s just the attack of a thunder but not the body of a thunder”) along with slaps and hits. This powerful sound resonates throughout the theater, making an indelible impression.
“There are just so many different layers — 26 different stems happen during that sequence just to be able to put the sound all around you,” Spencer reveals. “At times it’s in front of you, but a lot is textured around you. There’s always a low-end tension rumble happening. It starts really quiet and then slowly builds. As the song builds, we have the rain happening in front of you so that the high-end brings a little tension, but then the low-end of the rumble is all-encompassing. You can’t tell where it’s coming from because it’s coming from all the speakers and the subs above you, subs below you, and all around. So we’re building a layer of tension underneath it. At certain times that drops out for a second — like when they all say ‘Ponyboy’ — just to come back up for the next moment. There’s no orchestration, but there’s a lot of orchestration where the sounds are moving to help keep the flow of the whole rumble.” He states that at the beginning the rumble is more felt than heard.
“It’s a big crescendo of the show. We really played with moving sounds all around, and Stephen our programmer did some really cool stuff. There’s a section where people punch across the stage, and then punch back — the whole sound is moving from one side of the room to the other, and then back.”
Spencer notes that there are lot of young people coming to see The Outsiders, and he says that many of them start out secretly texting during the show, but by a couple of numbers in, their attention becomes riveted onto the stage. “It’s definitely not all me, but we made it more interesting,” Spencer says. “These little vignettes and little moments that are happening have a lot of sound effects and atmosphere, so it feels more involved than just two people talking on stage.”
